The World is Quieter Now
by Centuri Eagle
Summary: A concept taken from the alternate ending version of the movie, the bonus scenes from the movie/dvd, and some from the book. Anna and Robert.
1. Midnight Rescue

By the time Anna reached the pier it was almost too late.

She heard the chaos as she and Ethan slept less than a block away in the darkness. They peeked out the windows of the compact SUV they had picked up in Maryland. Made sure there were no dark seekers nearby. Then stripped off the vehicle cover and sped away into the direction of all the commotion.

A large heavily damaged SUV was being rolled over on its side by a tribe of dark seekers bent on getting at whoever was inside. The end of the pier looked like a war zone with dozens of crushed dark seeker bodies laying about.

The driver of this vehicle was either crazy or suicidal to be out there. He was never going to escape the never-ending strength of the infected human beings as they were already finishing flipping the vehicle onto its own roof.

With their prey now suitably immobilized and no longer a threat to them, they moved in for the kill. Anna could not just sit by and watch. What was probably a normal human being was in trouble and about to be devoured…and there were precious few humans left to let that happen.

She slammed on the accelerator

"Ethan! Get a flare!" she commanded. They young boy of nine years old immediately threw himself into the backseat and reached into a carrier box of their ready supplies and withdrew the tube of a old military signal rocket flare. He removed the cap from one end and clambered back into his passenger side seat.

Anna careened down the street like an avenging angel. When she reached the docks she spun the steering wheel rapidly left as she slammed on the brakes. With this maneuver she deliberately skidded several feet…into and over four or five dark seekers who had not yet joined into the rumble. Collateral casualties but it left Ethan's side clear of danger.

"Shoot it off! Shoot it off!" Anna shouted as she reached for her pistol to ward off any danger on her side of the vehicle

Ethan rolled down his window and pointed the metal tube out over the pier. He struck the back end of the metal tube as hard as he could against the side of their SUV. The firing pin at the end tube pierced the primer of the small signal rocket within the cylinder and with a loud 'whoosh' the small unguided missile arced over the water and landed in the middle of the melee at the end of the pier. It was a perfect shot.

On impact the little rocket detonated and a five star cluster of white flares exploded out and around the gang of dark seekers swarming the overturned SUV. The hot white phosphorous incendiaries burned brightly in five spots on the ground and singed the zombies' transparent flesh.

"Good! Good!" Anna complimented the boy. Little Ethan had become quite expert at firing off those things and that saved their life more than once. And now they were going to save the life of whatever human was lucky enough to be alive but crazy enough to be out in the dark amongst the dark seeking infected.

Anna crisply drove out on to the pier as the dozens of startled dark seekers were coming the other direction to escape the brilliant light. They dodged and jumped over her SUV, but some got bull-dozed into the water and almost immediately drowned.

Anna reached the end of the pier and immediately jumped out to assist the over-turned driver. Anna fell down to the ground and began crawling in through the window of the passenger side as Ethan covered the entrance to the pier with more flare launchers at the ready.

She found an alive but badly beat up human man hanging upside-down from the driver's seat. He shielded his eyes from the light and seemed much disoriented. She reached for the knife sheathed to her side and cut him free from his harness.

He fell to the roof, and as she dragged his tall form out from his side he kept on repeatedly grunting out, "What? No! Stop! Are you real? Are you real? Are you really…real!"

"Of course!" she answered under the strain of his weight and exasperated at such a silly question. She finally found an uninfected human man alive and he was apparently close to insanity. "Yes I am real…And…I am trying to rescue you! Now please help me! Come on! Use your legs!"

But he gave no verbal response as he had passed out in her arms upon hearing that. Little Ethan helped her carry him to their truck.


	2. A Long Hard Ride

They circled for a long time, but Anna was thoroughly lost in the city. She kept running into road blocks of cars that forced her to back-track into the hordes of pursuing dark seekers.

It was not fun.

The perpetually irate mutant humans tried to block her progress at every turn. But she had chosen this SUV well. It had powerful enough of an engine to have good acceleration for getting out of trouble, but was just small enough to have good handling and did not tip over easily. And tipping it over the dark seekers loved to try to do at every opportunity to slam against the vehicle.

It was not fun.

Still, she was beginning to see the sky lighten and soon it would be painful for the dark-seekers to be out.

"Thank you, God!" she crossed herself rapidly then returned her hand to the steering wheel. "It is getting light out Ethan! Do you see? We're going to make it! Are they still following us?"

"One!" Ethan replied from his backwards facing perch in the cargo area.

"Always!" commented Anna. There was always at least one dark-seeker in pursuit. She wondered if it was always the same one. 

She looked over at Robert who was holding on to consciousness nominally, but was mostly incoherent. She did not know what was affecting him? A bump on the head? Blood loss? Was he drunk? Was he drugged?

She looked at the seepage of blood over the passenger side interior. It could be the blood loss she guessed, if he had also lost a lot of it earlier. His leg did not look super bad, but it did not look very good either. She very much wanted to clean up the wound and stitch it shut.

Maybe infection was making him delirious, she thought to herself. No. It was too early for that. But still she wanted to get him to his home…safe and sanitized.

"Where do you live?" she asked Robert. She stepped on the gas precipitously once they were on a clear unblocked straightway in order to elude their pursuer or pursuers.

"Gotta…stay out…'til after dawn" he slurred out insistently from his mental haze. "They don't know where I live."

"Fine." Anna agreed. "It will be dawn soon. Tell me."

"Number 10…Washington Square," he confided.

"Great!" she acknowledged with a smile. "Now where's that?"

"The…the…the village".

She could see that he wasn't going to be of much help.

"Ethan?" she called back to her barely school age partner. "I am going to need to stop to look at the map. How are we doing back there? Are there many back there now?"

"No." Ethan stretched his neck and squinted to be very sure.

"How many?" Specifics were important in this case.

"I don't see them," was all the child would advise.

Anna sharply decelerated and hurriedly consulted the map. When she had drawn a zig-zag course on the map from where they were to where they needed to be she took off abruptly again. It wasn't too far. Nothing was too far in a New York without traffic.

She reached the colonnade arch of Washington Square Park a little bit before dawn. In the gathering light the mid-town neighborhood still looked opulently impressive, despite the serious overgrowth of plant foliage.

"Number ten." Anna noted when they found the right home. Ethan helped her carry Robert inside. Once they had him laid out on his living room couch Anna went to work stitching up the cut in his leg after giving him a local anesthetic. It worked. He barely moved as she cleaned, sterilized and sutured up the small but deep laceration.

After awhile she let him sleep and she went to find food to make breakfast.


	3. Blackest Nightmare

He is having the dream again. The last night he saw Marley and Zoe alive.

A red Coast Guard helicopter is taking off from the pier. In the window of the rescue aircraft are his wife and young daughter, and they are waving good-bye to him.

In his dream-mind he is happy that they are going to make it. They are going to be safe. They are going to escape the nightmare that New York City is going to be. They are going to his sister-in-law's place up-state. They will be safe, because he is going to stay here, and Manhattan Island will be shut off from the rest of the world.

He will stop the spread. He will fix this. They will be safe. Everyone will be safe because of him. That's the plan. That WAS the plan. He will save everyone. He will be their savior

…but then it all plays out in his dream, the way it always does. The way it did that night.

The helicopter rises. His wife and daughter wave good-bye with the anguish of being separated from him in their eyes

Puppy Samantha is in his arms, licking his teary face.

Jets fire rocket-bombs onto the nearby Brooklyn Bridge to and it begins to fall into smithereens.

No one else is getting off the island. But that is okay. That was the plan. It's all going according to plan.

The Army Rangers have gotten his family to the evacuation point in time before the official quarantine deadline stopped all air, boat, and ground traffic. A quarantine timed to stop the projected spread of the airborne mutation of the Krippin Virus that is killing its human hosts.

Everything is going to plan. So far…

On the landing pad on the next pier over a police helicopter takes aboard it's last lucky passengers allowed to leave the island.

Commotion begins.

That helicopter begins a maximum-weight take off, but some people do not take kindly to being left behind…to being apparently written off as expendable. They become unruly. That's understandable. That is why so many soldiers guard the last exits off of Manhattan.

Plenty of soldiers. A good quarantine plan.

Yes, there are plenty of soldiers, but there are more people than there are soldiers.

As the massive steel and stone Brooklyn Bridge finishes collapsing into the East River and the crowds fully grasp that there is only one last freedom bird out of New York still on the ground…they panic and they overwhelm the soldiers at the end of Pier 17.

Their goal: Get on to the last helicopter at all cost. Don't be left behind to die!

Five succeed.

The uncalculated-for passengers cling to the skids of the low-hovering aircraft, but too many are hanging from one side, ant that means imbalance. The helicopter twists away from the pad.

One hanger-on can't maintain his grip and he falls off from the left skid. The helicopter, now heavily overweight on its right, tilts precariously to one side and starts spinning inexorably out of control…

…out of control towards the Coast Guard chopper carrying Robert Neville's child and wife to safety.


	4. Awakening to a Dream

Robert awoke with a start in the rays of the morning sun. Daylight was always a good thing, but initially he did not even know where he was.

He was on the living room couch, but why he was there…he wasn't sure.

Another mystery was why his Shrek dvd was playing on the tv.

_Nothing is making any sense here_, _Robert,_ he told himself. _This is totally not a part of the standard operating procedure._ _What happened last night? _

He tried to remember. Then he realized why he was getting up after dawn: _Jesus! My watches!_

Digital life-lines to the schedule of the sun. Definitely not where they should be; on the wrists.

No there they were on coffee table right next to the couch. He reached for them like a child reaches for his security blanket.

Upon that stretching attempt he was reacquainted with the knife wound he accidentally inflicted upon himself a couple of days ago. It was still quite sore, but upon reaching down to his leg to feel if it had started seeping again, he found that the deep incision was nicely stitched up, and he did not remember doing that.

_Impossible. What is going on?_ It hurt to think.

It hurt to think he was going that crazy, that he was performing operations on himself and forgetting to secure the house for the night and abandoning his watches.

_But, yeah, I am going crazy_

He lay back in frustration.

_There it is, Doc_. _You can rule yourself mentally incapable now._

_Proof? Yesterday you saw Fred. You saw Fred move. It was okay when you were just talking to friendly Fred the mannequin to try and keep your sanity. Verbal interaction with inanimate objects is okay…in moderation, but when you start to think they are moving…changing location_

He clutched his fists to hold back the remembering.

_Fred HAD moved. He was not where he was supposed to be. He was not at the video shop. He was at…at Grand Central Station. How the hell did he get all the way over to Grand Central? And then you shot Fred. …and that is why you stepped into one of your own snare traps… And that is why you got knocked unconscious... And that is why you found yourself hanging upside down at dusk… And that is how you stabbed yourself in the leg cutting yourself free… And that is why you couldn't run to the car when you heard the howls of those hemocytic dogs… And that is why Sam had to defend you from those hairless blood thirsty canidae...cuz you were vulnerable…shaded from the protection of the setting sun… And that is how Sam got infected... And that is why Sam is now…_

He had to stop there. He did not want to remember. If he remembered about Sam being dead. If he thought about his trusty companion, his daughter's dog, his only companion for the past three years not being there anymore...

If he thought about having to kill Sam with his own bare hands…

_Don't go there. _

_Better to feel the pain in the leg. Better to fight for the last little bit of sanity. Better to smell the tantalizing aroma of… Was that bacon?_

_Was that HIS bacon? The last little bacon in this world?  
><em>

…and WORSE…why was there the sound of human movement coming from somewhere inside the house?

_THEY FOUND ME! That is bad…REAL BAD. Worst case scenario. Without Sam they finally found me!  
><em>

Robert looked for a gun to kill with.

Nothing nearby.

_Just perfect. _

He rolled over off the couch and down to the floor.

Over the arguing of Shrek and Donkey he was definitely hearing a bit of a racket being made. It was coming from the kitchen.

_Okay. Get crisp, and very fast! You've got to... One: Obtain a weapon. Two: Ascertain number of targets, and Three: Decide whether to engage targets or Four: abandon this research facility...also known as HOME!  
><em>

He gingerly limped his way to a small desk next to the TV, and opened a drawer. Sure enough…thankfully enough, there was one of the many police Smith and Wesson's in the drawer. New York's finest were no longer around to protect and serve, but their weapons remained.

Objective number one accomplished, he pulled the gun's slide back slightly to reassure himself there was a bullet ready in the chamber and quietly let it slide back. He thumbed the hammer back and then pushed his back against the living room wall that adjoined the kitchen. He took a deep breath.

With as nimble a pivot as he could manage on his damaged leg, he spun into the doorway with the gun pointed and both eyes open.

It was not hemocytes at all. It was two people. A woman and a child. He was sure of it! And for a second he thought it must be…

_Zoe. Marley.  
><em>

For a second he wished it to be and it WAS: His wife, in pink robe, cooking at the stove and his precious daughter doing homework at the kitchen table.

He wanted to capture the moment. He lowered the gun.

…but then he blinked and then they are gone.

In their place was a young woman...turned away from him, and cheerfully scrambling eggs…and a young boy at the table.

That was not as good as both Zoe and Marley, but still it was a pretty impressive dream. Damn impressive. A healthy woman and child was in his the kitchen, in his home, in Manhattan. He knew that this was possible. He knew they could not be here. He was the last man alive.

He staggered toward them, daring them to disappear.

Anna turned to him as she heard him approach. Ethan looked up startled.

As he got closer to them they did not disappear yet, but they seemed apprehensive and alarmed. Okay, now he did not want them to disappear. He needed this dream to last. It was the most beautiful one he had had in a long time. But they were frozen…transfixed on him. It was as if they thought he was going to hurt them.

_That's stupid,_ he thought. _Why would they think that I would hurt them? Don't stop moving. Be real. Don't be afraidl!_

He remembered the pistol he had just picked up from the drawer.

_Ah. The gun. Put it down!  
><em>

Robert gently placed the silver-steel handgun on the kitchen counter.

With that, Anna felt better about seeing him awake for the first time. She smiled gently and felt comfortable to finish making breakfast with him in the room.


	5. Everybody is Dead

Robert displayed his upturned palms, showing he was completely unarmed and harmless. The young woman pointed to the stove and apologized

"I'm afraid the eggs are powdered," she said. "But I did find bacon, which is about the most fantastic thing..."

Robert stared. She was talking. It was beautiful…but the words…the words. He could hear everything, but for some reason, he did not or could not respond. It was beyond him now. All the input. All the visual and auditory and even olfactory stimuli was hitting him too fast.

Someone was talking to him…and it wasn't a bark…and it wasn't a mannequin. After three years alone, that was really abnormal.

Getting no feedback from him, the girl continued. Maybe introductions were in order.

"I'm Anna and that's Ethan."

Robert made at faint nod at this, but in reality it really was not clicking. None of it was.

Anna could not make heads or tails of his stilted reaction. She carefully distributed-out the eggs from a pan and hoped he would do something normal like sit-down…or start eating…or even say something. Something at all. Nothing happened.

Robert unevenly stood behind the chair that sat behind a plate prepared for him, but he did not look at the food. He looked warily at Ethan as if he were something much more curious than just a little boy. Ethan, for his part, dared not look back. He could feel the stand-off in the room and awaited Anna's queue that everything was alright

Anna sat-down smoothly. When she realized Robert had shifted his attention to stare at her she placed her hands evenly on the table. Robert gave no indication that he even realized they it was time to eat what she had prepared.

"Don't let it get cold," she cajoled him with a slight frown. He finally at least looked down at the smattering of scrambled egg and 2 slices of bacon. "It's okay. Go on."

It worked…sort of. He sat. He seemed as if now he were out of place in his own home. Now he began to minutely arrange his plate, his glass of water, the silver ware…all as if he were frustrated at them for being littlest bit out of order. He frowned at the place setting. He did not look up.

All this kept Anna on edge too.

"We came from Maryland." Anna explained.

_Maryland? How can that be? Ain't heard nothing from Maryland. Ain't heard nothing from nowhere. Not in three years…_

"We heard your message on the radio," she continued. "We were at the pier at noon. We waited all day."

_Sorry about that. I should have been there. Sorry…_

"We're going to Vermont, " Anna declared. "To the survivors' colony. In Bethel. It's a safe zone."

With that his eyes widened a little.

The keywords 'safe zone' and 'Bethel' sparked something in Dr. Robert Neville, but it was not a good 'something'. These words were from the now dead vocabulary language of the Centers for Disease Control, The National Health Services, and, of course, the Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases…to which he had the ignominious distinction of being the last surviving member of that most august bio-defense agency.

Indeed, those words were now flashing in his brain like a lit up marquee on Broadway. Except the show they were advertising flopped on opening night. And, it was an ugly performance. Worse…he helped to design it all.

_Safe zones…misconceived. Bethel…no contact. Refuge ships…not self supporting. Manhattan quarantine…way too late. Serum…ineffective. Virus…adapting. Pandemic…complete! Get everybody to separate. Safe from everyone else. Stop the spread. All things fall apart… _

_This poor girl…and her child. They don't know. They don't know nothing worked the way it was supposed to. They don't know what I know. Nothing happened the way it was supposed to. I have to tell her. I'm sorry…_

"Everybody IS dead." His first words to her in a voice that sounded harsh and cold and final

Anna tried to look into his eyes.

"In the mountains," she tried again hesitantly. "There's a whole colony of people there who didn't get sick.."

_I know the planning all began here. Ground zero. I know. Oh yeah…I know there WAS a colony. WERE colonies. Several hundred. How many times? I listened. Calling it 'safe'. Closing the doors. Declaring a safe zone. Then first symptoms. Then calls for information on how to treat them. Then bodies are piling up. Then people begging me for a serum that doesn't exist. Then someone notices that someone has been nibbling at the bodies. Then if they were lucky they died…because… I failed. Ground zero is still 'hot' and I failed._

"Everybody is DEAD," he repeated, this time with emphasis on the last word. For the first time Anna wondered if he was speaking prophetically. He wouldn't look directly at her.

"The virus couldn't survive the cold," she asserted. She moved her fork to her left hand and slid her right to her body. "There's a colony…"

_She's insane! She is going to go there and get infected or get eaten…because she believes in the 'safe zones'. She won't listen! Nothing worked! Listen!_

The last twig holding together his mental forest snapped…and it snapped LOUDLY.

"Shut up!" he yelled pulling the plate of food backwards off the table with a crash. "EVERYBODY IS DEAD!"

That was it! Anna made a decision. She had seen it before. Some people turn overnight. Some people turn gradually. And some people turn right before your very eyes. She had to kill a friend like that. She had come far since then. She had killed a lot since then. She could do it again. No late-turning dark-seeker was going to eat Ethan OR her when they were so close to salvation. They had come too far for THAT.

She pulled Ethan behind her while simultaneously she drew a Glock pistol that was tethered at her waist. She held the black laminar weapon on Robert until she could see his eyes.

No ocular hemorrhaging was apparent. That was good.

Robert couldn't understand. It really was happening too fast. His once sharp mind was in the blender…and he knew it.

"I just need..." He pointed circularly at his head. "I need a minute. Okay?"

But how do you tell someone you have gone crazy without making them even MORE scared of you?

"Just..." he tried. "I just... I was saving that bacon."

He hoped she would understand. He hoped she could see…

"I was saving it…"

_Saving it for a special occasion. For when I earned the right to eat that bacon by collating a cure. _

_Now the bacon is cooked. That means that there will be no cure._

Robert dejectedly got up from the table and tromped upstairs. There he sat on the edge of the bath tub that he and Sam used to hide in at night.


	6. In Denial

**A semblance of clarity came to Robert as he sat there. He was still smart and he realized he was in trouble: he could not think clearly. He resented the woman and boy downstairs and yet he had been waiting for them for what seemed like half his life…even though in reality it was three years. Of course three years when you are alone might as well BE half a life.**

**He looked in the direction of the stairway. He could still hear Shrek, and Donkey, and Fiona. **

**The boy, whose name he had already forgotten, was still watching his dvd. A presumptious use of his property. **

_**What gave him the right…? **_**Robert thought to himself, but his mind drifted**_** …and the bacon! **_

**He was still not on focus.**

_**You can still do this! Right? Can't you? If you could just get your program together. Why can't you get your stuff in order? Come on!**_

**He slammed his fist to his head as he squeezed his eyes tight. **

**When he opened his eyes he looked out the window. The master bathroom looked out over Greenwich Village. It was so bright out there.**

_**Crap! It must be almost seven o'clock. You are way off schedule, boy. What the hell are you doing?**_

**That made him nervous. He looked at his wrists. **

_**No watches! You have to go down there and get them…where THOSE two are. I can't face them. I just have to get the watches…and then get back to work. Maybe they will go away. Take a bath. Get back on schedule! And…maybe they will just go away. And we can be alone. I can be alone.**_

**He drew water, bathed, and put on fresh clothes. It felt better. It was still nowhere near 'right' though. **

**When he limped downstairs sure, enough he found that the boy was seated right in front of the TV watching the cartoon. Actually, that was a relief. Kids were still kids…even the last kid on Earth. Sort of comforting. Of course the irony was that he Robert loved Shrek too. Too much…**

**Without thinking he started reciting the lines, word for word, right along with the characters. The boy's eyes were transfixed on him. Robert continued to rattle on and on almost without missing a beat. He didn't see that the young woman had walked in from the kitchen and was watching him warily and incredulously.**

**Ethan finally cracked a faint smile at Robert's verbatim recitation of the TV dialogue…he even accompanied it with the inflection of the character voices of Shrek and Donkey.**

"**I like Shrek, " Robert lamely explained. **

**The boy looked over to Anna. In something like what was now an unspoken language between the two Ethan gave his approval. **

**Robert followed the boy's eyes and found Anna standing just outside the periphery of his vision. She squinted at him as if seeing him for the first time. **

**She could see that he was NOT about to turn infected. He just… It didn't matter. She turned her back on him and walked back into the kitchen. **

**He slowly limped after her. **

**By the time he reached the kitchen table she was already seated there reading and writing on something and largely ignoring him.**

"**You're not so good with people anymore are you?" she said without looking up.**

**The accusation stung a little bit. **

_**I am sorry. You are the first people I've seen in years. I am sorry. **_

**He wanted to say that out loud, but he knew she was right. He was in no shape to be 'social'. **

**Army training had taught him that soldiers coming out of prisoner-of-war isolation often had a hard time adjusting to the stimulus of regular 'friendly' human contact. They become quickly overwhelmed by having people around them that do NOT want to hurt them. He could truly understand that teaching now. The only 'people' he had 'known' for the last 3 years all just wanted eat him. And that was NOT very friendly.**

**He could not think of what to say to her. He sat down slowly at the table across from her and his thigh reminded him of a talking point. Just now to get it out. **

**Again, he avoided much eye contact, "Thank you…for my leg."**

"…'**kay," was all she replied. Now it was her turn to be taciturn. Robert noticed the slight bags under her eyes as if she had not slept real well for a much of her true adulthood…which was probably the case. Anyhow, he knew that tired look. He had seen it in the mirror. He began to get in sympathy with her. She had probably been through living hell and she maybe wasn't even really more than 23 yet… And yet…there she sat, staring at him critically. How was she alive?…and with a kid!**

"**Where have you been?" He finally asked THAT question; that question that had been eating at him since he woke up. He hadn't meant to, but he asked it sort of accusatorily. Like as if she had been hiding from him or something. **

**Fortunately she didn't take it that way. She was all too happy to explain. At least him asking and talking was something like 'normal'.**

"**I was on a Red Cross evacuation ship out of São Paulo…" she began.**

_**Shit!**_

"**Those boats weren't meant to be permanent," he confessed matter-of-factly. He was staring off into space. Avoiding eye contact.**

"**No, they weren't" Anna continued with little accusation in her voice, more like there was a hardness in it that was nominally avoiding recalling a remembered horror. "When the Navy fell apart, we started docking to take on supplies. Someone picked 'it' up on shore. Five of us were immune."**

"**Five?" Robert got excited. He even looked directly at her. Were there more? Alive?**

**But her expression and hesitation said it all, and Robert began to settle down with realization. She didn't need to say it. She said it anyway:**

"**The Darkseekers got them!"**

_**Shoulda stayed on the boat. Airborne viruses play for keeps. Eat fish. Catch rain water. Too many cracks in the system. One slip and you have communal contagion…**_

**He was looking at her but not seeing. He was agitated like a homeless mentally ill person at a gala banquet. Totally not what she was expecting, but she wanted…needed to engage him.**

"**You are **_**the**_** Robert Neville," she asked with the slightest of hopeful smiles. "…aren't you?"**

_**How do you answer that one, doctor? How do you answer that when your picture was on the cover of the final issue of Time magazine along with the questioning headline 'Our Saviour?' **_

_**Yep, it's yours truly, Miss. Dr. Robert Neville-Emergency Viral-Incident Response Team Leader. Guilty as charged. Sorry about your ship. Sorry about that cure you were expecting. Sorry about your planet. Sorry. I was not THE Savior, Madam. I was not so SMART after all. I was not all I was cracked up to be. I fell short of the glory of God. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry.**_

**He averted his eyes in the total opposite direction this time. A pained expression wracked his face and he shook backwards and forwards slightly in his seat. He wanted to cry...but he had cried himself out yesterday. Nothing would come.**

**Anna let it go. She didn't have time to deal with this…circumstance. She was close to 'home plate'. She was rounding third. She was going to get them all to safety. It was up to her.**

"**It's too late today." She announced smartly. "If we leave tomorrow at dawn, we can make it to Vermont in a straight shot. So if you had.. "**

**Something tightened inside of Robert as if a boa constrictor had invaded his abdominal cavity and was squeezing everything from his colon on up. **

"**I'm not leaving." He interrupted her suddenly. His bloodshot watery eyes were now upon hers. Those eyes were still a little bit 'empty' but they were pleading. **

**His words, on the other hand, were entirely comical: **

"**This is ground zero," his eyes started to waver. "This is my site."**

"**I'm not gonna let THIS happen…" now his voice was wavering.**

"…**I…I can still fix this." It was crazy enough to be the punch line of a comedy routine.**

**Anna sighed. How do you tell someone academically smarter than you that they are insane, unsafe, and no longer fit to be on their own? How?**

"**What happened to your leg?" she asked. You don't TELL…you SHOW.**


	7. The Faces of the Dead

**At 42****nd**** Street and Park Ave a yellow taxi lay upside down in front of lower entrance to Grand Central Station. It had fallen to 42****nd**** after serving as the counter weight for a pulley snare that had been ingeniously designed. And Robert should have known it was ingeniously designed…as he had designed it. The only problem was…he couldn't remember setting this trap up. **

"**That's my snare," he said pointing to the parts of the trap. Anna and Ethan looked on, nonplussed. "These are my materials."**

"**Fine," said Anna. "That's how you hurt your leg?..."**

"**You don't understand," Robert interjected. He looked up nervously at the overpass where the taxi had been precipitously set up. "I don't…I don't remember… This should NOT be HERE."**

**Anna nodded to him almost imperceptibly. He didn't like where her looks were leading.**

"**No…no…!" he told her. Robert shook his head to quash that idea right where it lay. "The infected didn't do this. They can't."**

**She didn't contradict him, but touched the tire of the upside down cab as she leaned over it towards him.**

"**How do you know?" she asked.**

"**They have no higher brain function," he told her…and himself. "They don't plan or hate or love. They can't."**

"**They can't…" he repeated.**

**:**

**Robert sat looking into the waters of a reflecting pool inside the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Ethan played along the edge trying to catch one of the many fish that had been placed there by Robert for food, and had multiplied over three years. They had come there to catch a fish, and give a weekly feeding to the rest, but Robert was taking some time to contemplate as Anna took a little of the exhibits and Ethan enjoyed himself. **

**After touring the Ascent of Man exhibit Anna came back and sat next to Robert. What she said next she phrased in the form of a question:**

"**Could they be evolving?"**

**Robert turned his head and his lips parted to begin a short interjectional pleading in protest of this audacious inquiry, but then a splash occurred.**

"**Ethan!" Anna tsked at the boy, who had accidentally fallen, or jumped, into the water while trying to grasp a fish. The medium-sized trout were irresistible play things. ALL things in New York were irresistible play things to a boy who had spent his most recent years in the serious pursuit of not being captured and consumed.**

**That reminded Robert that he was 'supposed' to be trying to resume his schedule of tasks. No need to let the boy wading in the calf deep man-made pond full of Robert's swimming livestock get in the way of that.**

"**Hey, Ethan!" Robert shouted, preparing the boy for what was about to come. He dug a large scooper into a bucket of fish feed and flung the small pellets of concentrated protein meal so they landed around Ethan. The hungry fish went wild. They had missed a feeding that normally would have come a couple of days ago. The resulting feeding frenzy gave a virtual Jacuzzi affect all around the boy. **

**Ethan was amazed. He sat back in the water and looked at the fish fiesta all around himself and laughed. Dr. Robert Neville himself had almost cracked his first full smile in a long while until the boy made his next declaration:**

"**It's cold!"**

_**Cold. I wonder.**_

**His eyes widened and his jaw dropped a little. Something was clicking inside the old virology scientist. His mind regained some of its much needed focus and clarity…and with that came purpose!**

"**We gotta go." he said with a crispness and resoluteness that surprised Anna. That level of responsiveness had not been in much exhibition from him so far.**

**Anna looked to him to see for an explanation as to what this new spark was about.**

"**I've been cooking the compounds." **

"**What?" Anna asked. He had given no preamble as to what he was talking about. **

"**Ice. What I need…is ice," was his elaboration on the point.**

**With that, he led them out of 'The Met' in a hurry.**

**:**

**In his basement laboratory Dr. Neville's 'subject', a female dark-seeker that he captured days earlier, lay unconscious and surrounded by collapsing mounds of ice. It breathed in short rapid breaths as they always do. Not even the chemically induced coma Robert was subjecting it to could bring it's respiration down to a normal human resting rate. **

**But all that was okay now, as the ice was still slowing things down, in a good way. Robert maintained a concentrated pace annotating the results. He looked up with a start when the outer lab door closed with a slam and Anna was suddenly emerged at the bottom of the stairs.**

"**Whoa, you startled me." **

"**Sorry, " Anna apologized. She smiled and handed him an offered cup of coffee. "I knocked twice."**

**Anna had changed clothes and was now wearing a simple tank top, but she had also put on a little make-up that had probably once belonged to Robert's wife. Anna had meant to apologize for that intrusion if Robert noticed, but he did not. He went right back into his work.**

**Anna also too now became vastly interested in the subject. She stared in amazement at the hemocyte woman strapped to the observation table. She approached it cautiously. Robert noted her trepidation.**

"**It's heavily sedated. Don't worry, it's safe." **

"**I've never seen one still," she commented as she maneuvered closer to the table. "They're always…biting."**

**Anna noticed the chilling anti-viral compound.**

"**You think that can cure her?"**

"**Uhh…No, this will almost certainly kill 'it', but it's possible by drastically reducing the body temperature I can increase the compound's effectiveness."**

**Anna accepted that analysis without question. She took in the rest of the lab room. She moved toa wall covered in a collage of photographs of the bruised faces of dark-seekers. They were the post-mortem visual records of the captured past subjects of Dr. Nevilles experimentation at finding a cure.**

"**Did all of them die?" she asked.**

"**Yes." Dr. Neville affirmed without much sorrow.**

"**My God," Was all Anna could say**

"**God didn't do this, Anna." Robert advised sternly. "We did."**

**Anna thumbed one of the photographs. She noted with sorrow that the distorted facial features had once been very human. As she lifted back the paper of the photo she saw that there was another one behind it…with the picture of another dead dark-seeker. And there was one under that one, and one under that one. To Anna's shock and surprise she discovered that the wall was several layers deep with the photographs of the infected that had died.**

"**Oh my God!" Anna repeated in horror.**

**Robert looked from the hemo-cyte woman on the table to the wall to Anna.**

"**We did this Anna," he said as he calmly dipped a syringe into the perfectly temperatured compound 13578. He then injected the solution into the intravenous solution bag that was dripping rehydrating fluids into the comatose darkseeker. "We either cure them all…or kill them all. Actually, when you think about it…what does it really matter? They're already dead. They just don't know it."**

**Robert held his breath for a second waiting for the compound to take effect. The marble white hairless woman just lay there unchanged. She neither got better or worse. She didn't even die. Robert took his laboratory goggles off and squeezed at his temples.**

**"God damn."**

**Anna, sadly, agreed.**


	8. God Still Loves Us

"Where can Ethan sleep?" Anna asked.

Robert picked-up the boy, who was already sleeping, and began to carry him upstairs.

"He's heavy," Robert noted aloud, but did not seem particularly put-out by the burden. He smiled. Anna noticed the contrast between the professional/killer Robert Neville and the caring family-man before her.

"Can you get that?" Robert asked when they got to his daughter's room. Anna opened the door and led the way in. The room was exactly the same as when Marley had last lived there. Her drawings covered the walls and her toys occupied many spaces. Anna noticed on a small desk a picture of Marley holding Sam as a puppy.

"She's beautiful. What was her name?"

"Marley," Robert said with reawakened parental pride.

"It's a beautiful name."

"Yeah we named her after Bob Marley."

"Who?"

"Bob Marley. The singer."

Anna looked confused. Robert could not believe it.

"You don't know who Bob Marley is?" He was incredulous. "Greatest reggae singer of all time? 'Legend' – Greatest reggae album of all time? "

"Oh." Anna said non-committally.

"Jesus, girl!" Robert now tried to invoke the spirit of Bob Marley singing his classic 'I Shot the Sheriff'

"I shot the sheriff…" he crooned in an octave eight notes too high for his voice. "But I did not shoot the deputyyyyy…"

When Anna began to laugh at this, Robert took it in stride and stumbled over to the stereo and put in a cd. Bob Marley's 'Stir it Up" began to play.

Robert started to nod his head to the beat of the bongo drums.

"I like that." Anna smiled as she watched professional Robert Neville transform even more into a full-fledged persona. She liked this version of him so much more…an easy, almost care free spirit was underneath that entire burdened soul. He was smiling.

"THAT is Bob Marley."

"Uhh-Huhhh," she giggled slightly.

"Now, Bob Marley, " Robert expounded. "He had this idea; it was kind of a virologist's idea. He believed that you could cure racism and hate. Literally cure it...by injecting music and love into people's lives."

"That's beautiful." She had closed her eyes to listen to the timbre of his voice.

"Well, one day, he was scheduled to perform at a peace rally. Gunmen came to his house and shot him down."

"Oh no." Anna's eyes opened again in shock and sadness.

"Yeah. But just two days later," Robert held up two fingers in emphasis "...he walked out on that stage and sang."

Now Anna was amazed. She said nothing to interrupt the story. She just stared on in pleased wonder.

"Somebody asked him…' Why?' And he said, 'The people who are trying to make this world worse are not taking a day off. Why should I?...'"

Robert's face became peaceful as he built up to the climax of the quote.

"…Light up the darkness."

With that Anna stood up abruptly, approached him closely and put her hands on his chest. She took a deep breath and spoke.

"Come with us, Neville. To the colony."

Robert stepped back from her and shook his head. Anna had been worried he might become withdrawn again, but the denial in THIS Robert Neville while still regretful, was also a tinged with the cold, professional Doctor/Colonel that could see a fool's paradise on the horizon from miles away.

"I'm sorry," he said. He sounded almost pitying. "There's no colony, Anna. Everything just fell apart. What was planned…did not work out. There was no..."

"You're wrong. There is a colony. I know, okay?

"Why? How do you know, Anna?

"I just know," she said as if a child might.

"How? I said, HOW do you know?" He thought about it for a second. "How could you know?"

He turned to look at her directly.

"God told me," she let stumble out. "He has a plan."

"God told you?" he checked.

"Yes." She nodded.

"_The_ God?" he raised a critical eyebrow. It was an answer he was not expecting, but hearing it now come from her…he should have guessed. For the first time he was really looking at her. For the first time he noticed she had such pure innocent eyes. He wondered for a brief second if it was a side of herself she kept suppressed. Anyway it would have been too much to hope that…

"Yes," she said confidently. "I know how this sounds..."

"Yeah," he offered. "It sounds crazy."

"…but something told me to turn on the radio," she continued. Her voice was soft and rhythmic and her face was without guile. Her innocent faith was her 'proof'. "Something told me to come here.

"My voice on the radio told you to come here, Anna," he smirked.

"You were trying to kill yourself last night?" On that, even if she was wrong she was sort of 'right'.

"Anna…" he looked away as he began his weak protest to this point.

"I got here just in time to save your life. That's a coincidence?"

How do you deny your savior her sainthood? She did not even seem like she wanted to be thanked. She just wanted him to acknowledge that _someone _wanted him alive. The argument was stronger if that someone was not just her.

"Just stop it. Stop it. Stop." He shook his head from side to side.

"He must have sent me here for a reason," she reasoned.

She came after him again standing intimately close

"Neville, the world is quieter now," she continued. "The one and only benefit of so few people here now. You just have to listen. If we listen...we can hear God's plan."

"God's plan?" he asked. It was an unfortunate analogy on her part.

"Yeah." She nodded. She figured he was getting it.

"God's intelligent design?"

"Yes!"

Ha! She had fallen for his figure of speech trap. Now he had to tell her the truth about what happened.

"All right, then. Let me tell you all about your God's plan, " he began calmly. "There were 6 billion people on Earth when the infection hit. The Krippin Virus had a 90 percent kill rate. That's 5.4 billion people dead. Crashed and bled out, dead. Less than 1 percent immunity. That left 12 million healthy people like you, me and Ethan. The other 588 million...well, they turned into your darkseekers."

This is where the story got ugly.

"And then they got hungry," Robert whispered. "And they killed and fed on everybody. Everybody! Every single person that you or I have ever known...is dead! Dead. There is no God. There is no God. There can't be."

"YES." A surprising smile had never left her face. It was in fact becoming more peaceful…if not bigger. "But…?"

"'But' nothing," he said. He was dumbfounded. She seemed _almost_ unfazed.

"But…" she prompted again. She cocked her head as if she had a big secret.

"But what?" Robert finally gave in. What could possibly mitigate all that…ultimate disaster?

"But…as you told me downstairs," she said kindly. "God didn't create this virus. 'We' did. …right?"

And for the second time Dr. Robert Neville had been caught in his own trap by an 'opponent' with an upper hand. A creeping apprehension hit him with her words.

"I… I…" he wanted to defend himself…his world.

Anna raised her hands to his shoulders in a sort of nurturing gesture…a way of trying to get him to 'let go'.

"You see, Neville…" she had worked her hands very subtly up past his neck to very gently holding his head steady and force his eyes to concentrate on hers. There was no harm in her, but she was not going to lose this battle.

"..God still loves us."

She tilted her head slightly and pushed up as much as she could with her toes…but she was far too short to meet up to the height of his face on her own. She did not try to pull him down at all, but she gave as much of herself as she could.

"God still loves us…" she whisper-repeated softly.


	9. Believe in Angels

**"God still loves us…" Anna's words rang in Robert's ears.**

**He was hit with the imagery of the inspirational posters that had sprung up all over the city in the last days; the words, 'God Still Loves Us' printed in white beneath a stylized graphic of a butterfly. He would see the posters up even now, three years hence, on billboards, on buildings, and the sides of abandoned blockading tanks and armored vehicles. They were everywhere, along with the Christmas decorations that were up on those last fateful days.**

**"What?..." he asked, not really thinking.**

**"God still loves…you."**

**Robert wanted to believe. Her face seemed so genuine and so pure.**

**"How do you know?" he asked. So much emotion was tearing and twisting at him...**

**"Because…I too love you." It was an answer that made no sense…and yet, it worked. **

**Robert closed the physical gap between them, lowered his head and their lips met.**

**…and it was like heaven opened up.**

**It was way too much for Robert. He backed up a little away from her.**

**Anna pursued her advantage and closed-in on him again. Robert was running out of space in the room. She placed the side of her face against his broad chest and pressed the rest of her body into his.**

**There was nothing Robert could do. It was all happening instinctively now. He reached down and around her. He took a deep breath and smelled all of her…and she smelled like…Life.**

**"I know what you are trying to do," he said almost tenderly. "But I can't. I can't leave HERE." He emphasized the last word with an unintended strong grasp of his hands that made her moan in a rushed breath. She pressed herself into him more.**

**"Then take me with you…" she arched her back to face him again and then her eyes glanced at the ceiling. "…upstairs."**

**"Why?" he asked. She was beautiful. "What do you want?"**

**She smiled at this perceptiveness.**

**"You. You are the one. You are making the cure. You have been trying since the disaster. You are making it from the immunity inside of you. Yet you are all alone. And...you've made it clear you don't believe in God. Well, I can't let you go. I won't let you come to harm. You give me no alternative."**

**"****I am okay now,**** Anna. I won't let 'them' get me." But, he could see it in her eyes. Almost religious devotion. "I had a bad day, but I will be careful from..."**

**She crawled into his arms and kissed him again to stop him. Nothing he was going to say was going to stop this from happening. She paused and smiled innocently and yet passionately at the same time.**

**"It doesn't matter. Neville...can't you see?" she asked with her large clear eyes. "…all you need is me. Everybody needs a mate...and destiny says you are mine. I can't leave you."**

**Her chin was resting upon his heavily breathing chest now as she looked up at him. She felt the strong thumping in his chest.**

**"The rhythm of your heart is like that Marley song; pure and sweet," she said. "...and you hold the world's future."**

**The way she was now…so different. Pure and essential woman.**

**"Believe me, Neville..." Her voice had sincerity and authenticity behind it that made him listen. "...In this brave new world you're the best. You're like a new day's sun, a gospel song, a new born butterfly. I will be your wife...your lover. It's God's will."**

**Her determination was enough. He lifted her up in his arms and holding her closer than he had ever carried anything before in his life he took her upstairs. He opened the bedroom door and let her stand on the bed where her eyes now met his on-level. He tugged at her jeans until they fell around her ankles and she stepped out of them. She was breathing heavily and swallowing repeatedly. She removed her underwear.**

**"How long have we got?"**

**He ran his hands over her bare buttocks and squeezed tightly . She shivered uncontrollably. He pulled her lower body into him. He then lifted her up. She wrapped her legs around his waist. He carried her over to the bedroom casement window and pressed her back against it. They were bathed in the rays of the late day sun. He kissed her head, her hair, her neck. This was especially close to heaven. She smelled like it now. He looked and saw on the side of her neck a tattoo. A stylized butterfly.**

**"You have the butterfly." New life and rebirth epitomized.**

**"Believe in angels, Neville..." she gasped.**

**"What?" he asked. She was now pulling at him and running her hands under his shirt simultaneously.**

**"How long?"she ignored his question. She raised a hand up and back blindly until it hit the window. She pointed a finger at the sun.**

**"More than an hour," he assured her. He abruptly held her other arm up and then lifted off and away her tank top. Now she was truly the pure young girl, naked, clinging desperately...to the last man.**

**"Just make love to me, Neville" she pleaded. "It's all I ask. Trust me. I AM your angel. I was sent for you."**

**And make love to her he did…in the light of the sun on the bed. And then for them, just for a little while, the whole earth stopped, and later...it started new again.**


	10. Killer Monster

**Robert stayed with her as long as he dared, but the sun was getting very low…and he had much to do. When he gently tried to remove his arm, which Anna was sleeping on, she suddenly woke with a gasp and instinctively reached for him.**

"**Sorry, sorry…" Robert said soothingly. "I have to go secure the house. Please go back to sleep, " he begged. "I'll check on Ethan"**

**She protested his leaving by wrapping her arms around his shoulders. His digital watch started beeping.**

"**Okay. Okay," she relented. "You go secure. I will check Ethan."**

**He stroked her hair and kissed her forehead. **

"**Thank you for finding me."**

**He reluctantly departed from her. With practiced expediency he closed all the steel shutters, turned off the generators, switched to the battery array, and activated the security system.**

**After Anna had cleaned up, dressed, and checked on the sleeping Ethan she came downstairs. She had expected to find him in his lab, but he was actually in the living room consulting a map and surrounded by an assortment of weapons. He was consulting a map where he was circling some likely buildings in red. Other buildings were already crossed out.**

"**Do you think we will need this tonight?" she asked with concern.**

"**No. Certainly not," he comforted her a little with a reassuring smile. "One or two might try to get in...just randomly ya know. The house is secure enough for that, but I need to go out…"**

"**Out there?!" she exclaimed.**

"**Shhh…" Robert put a finger to his lips. "Yes. I need to make a raid on that colony I encountered."**

"**At night?" Anna was incredulous.**

"**Yes, at night," he confirmed. "If I hit them in the day they will just go further in and underground…into the subway and the sewers. They'll abandon their hive and just find a new one. But at night they will come out and fight and attack. I can take an armored Stryker vehicle and mow them down. They'll keep on coming. I can get more of them at night…"**

"**But, why attack them?" **

"**Why?" Now it was Robert's turn at incredulity. "I have to keep them off balance. I have never been able to find their main hive, but when I find them in smaller groups I can at least keep them from setting up home too near to here…"**

"**Neville…" Anna said. "Maybe if you just let them alone…"**

"**If I let the alone they will find this home." He gestured to indicate the house. "The lab..." he pointed down. "If they destroy all th…"**

"**Have they ever attacked here?" she interrupted. "…I mean, in a group?"**

"**Three or four times," Robert admitted with a visible shudder. "It was pretty bad."**

**Anna approached him in the soft placating manner she had before earlier.**

"**Maybe. Maybe…" Anna began. "..if you left them alone, maybe they wouldn't attack you? You could continue your research in peace."**

"**Anna," Robert shook his head. It was a nice thought, but to Robert it was basically unimaginable. "These are savage beasts. They don't think. They don't hold truces. They want nothing but my blood…"**

"**Maybe they want your blood because you are killing them."**

**Robert was stunned momentarily by the suggestion. He put his marking pen down as he looked at the map. It was chart of his victories. Blacked and crossed out buildings marked skirmishes and destruction that he had wreaked in the constant on-going war against his nocturnal enemy. He thought of himself as the loan underdog against an over-manned opponent. It was a brutal chess game against a witless but merciless opponent. ****He sat back on the edge of the arm of the living room couch.**

"**Maybe they just want to survive. Maybe to them you are a midnight terror. A bad dream that stalks them when they try to sleep…and traps and attacks them when they are awake. Maybe…"**

"**Why do you think they are so smart, Anna?" Robert knew better. "They are going on instinct with their adrenal glands running full open destroying their brains and making them ten times angry and hungry enough to attack ANYTHING. I've seen it. I've done it. They will keep attacking relentlessly regardless of how many I…"**

"**Kill," she finished for him. She wisely gave it a pause for a second before continuing on a slightly different tack.**

"**I don't know," she admitted. "Bu,t m****aybe, just maybe they really ARE ****evolving or c****hanging…"**

"**No, Anna. I've been watching them. They are not evolving…they are devolving. They are getting worse…"**

"**But, you've been watching the virus more. Right? Haven't you?" She continued to plead the darkseekers' case. "Maybe you missed something. Maybe they are LIKE people. Simple people…like humanity was a millennia ago. Maybe they are growing their own culture and patterns and knowledge. Maybe to them…you are what passes for as a monster. Killing them as they 'sleep'. They are suffering enough as they are…but they only know you as a harbinger of hot death. Maybe YOU are the..."**

"...**I am the 'monster?'" Robert mused at the sinister concept.  
><strong>

**Anna reached out to him with both hands and then pressed his head to her chest.  
><strong>

**"Not to me, baby. But to them."  
><strong>

**The security system began to beep furiously. Robert ran over to the closet and swung open the door. A lit up display monitor showed where motion detectors had been tripped repeatedly and were going wild. A howl from an infected chilled Roberts soul. He switched the display to a security camera view. Robert gasped. An army of darkseekers was coming across Washington Square Park…right towards his home.**

"**No no no…" It was THE nightmare in its truest form. "It can't be. Not now. …how could they find us?"**

**He searched for answers hoping in vain that maybe what was happening was not happening.**

"**They found me? Could I have? Did I…? How did we get home…?" he asked.**

"**I brought you remember? You were out of action on the pier," Anna said with agitation. "But there was light on the horizon…"**

**Robert dropped his head in despair.**

"**They followed us home…"**

"**Ethan!" Anna screamed and ran for the stairs.**

**Robert hobbled his way to a gun port on the door and slid it open. He could see vast hordes streaming through park. This was the whole tribe of infected 'humans'. Maybe several hundred or more. And they were breaching the defensive perimeter.**

**Robert hit a switch that turned on a series of floodlights that illuminated the park brightly. Most of the darkseekers were stopped by this but some climbed the light stands and brought them crashing down. It was the only delay Robert was going to get. He grabbed a firing console and turned it on. He flip switch after after switch arming a series of explosive gas canisters setup around the neighborhood. When all the arming lights were on he crouched down and hit the main detonator.**

**Several explosions ripped through the infected. The living room shook as if hit by a sudden earthquake. Robert held his blasted his eardrums. Light was now streaming through gaps in the shutters and walls. Robert looked out onto the street. The area was strewn with fires and the mangled bodies of the darkseekers.**

**The alpha-male roared as more infected ran past him towards the house.**


	11. To the last drop of blood

"**Anna!"**

**Robert clutched at his head and hobbled up the stairs. When he got to the second floor he looked up to third and called again.**

"**Anna!" No response.**

**He was about to turn on to the next set of stairs when he noticed light shining through the shutters of his exercise room/study. Both the treadmills and the desk chair were turned over…and on the sharp edge of one of the torn steel shutters fresh blood was dripping. Pale hemocyte blood. A dark seeker had cut himself pushing into the house. Robert grimaced. **

**From out of nowhere a marble white body slammed into Robert and knocked him off his feet. The alpha male of this tribe, recognizable by his tatter of a vest shirt, immediately sank his teeth into Robert's shoulder and dragged him across the floor and into the exercise room. **

**The alpha male lifted Robert up, threw him down on the desk and started to pummel him furiously. The brutal hemocyte then lifted Robert up again and slammed him through the desk. Robert lay still. The alpha male screamed up at the ceiling, mouth fully agape, in an audible display of righteous fury. **

**But Robert was not out of it. He looked down and near his hand was a screwdriver. Robert picked it up and stabbed the his attacker with it. The alpha male, hurt but not incapacitated picked up Robert and through him out of the study, over the landing and down the stairs.**

**Finding himself at the bottom of the stairs Robert looked up to see the alpha male at the top. The hemocyte leader pulled out the screwdriver and made the big leap to come down the stairs. Robert picked up a rifle from where he placed it in the hallway umbrella stand and fired. The alpha male landed short of the bottom and leapt over the bannister. He sprinted away into the kitchen, dodging Robert's bullets. **

**Unable to get a shot off directly at the hemocyte. Robert aimed for a canister near the portable generators and fired. The resultant explosion knocked the hemocyte leader into the hallway. With sidereal speed the alpha male leaped back over the bannister and ran upstairs. Robert pursued with his own fury and vengeance now. Shooting almost continuously he hobbled from room to room. **

**Robert followed to the exercise room and right to the shutters where the alpha male must have gotten in from. He is looked out into the glowing light of burning tree outside. He was still pulling the trigger and nothing was happening. He pressed the magazine release and examined the clip. Of course it was empty. He dropped the clip and the weapon to the ground.**

"**Anna!" **

**He hobbled hurriedly up to the third floor. He checked in his daughter's room. There was no Ethan there…and no Anna. He came out and turned the corner to his bedroom. He narrowly escaped being seen by another infected male who was incredibly hanging from the ceiling and clawing a hole through it. **

**But under the bedroom dresser, THERE was Anna and Ethan…hiding! Robert motioned for them to remain quiet. The darkseeker male continued to furiously burrow upwards towards the roof, ripping out planks and plaster. Robert peered into the room. On the nightstand table was Anna's Glock where she had placed before when they had started making love.**

**Robert made a dash for it. He ran in and grabbed the gun just as the darkseeker noticed his entry. Robert quickly pulled the slide back and released and fired off several rounds at point-blank range into the hemocyte's body. It fell back giving a death scream even as Robert pumped more bullets into it. Eventually the screaming and the shooting both stopped. The pale figure lied still. Another one dead.  
><strong>

**Ethan and Anna crawled out from beneath the dresser.**

"**Are you okay? Are you alright?" Robert checked on both of them.**

"**Yeah." Ethan managed to get out.**

"**Oh my God," Anna said looking at his shoulder. "You're bleeding."**

**A banshee-like scream from the exterior startled them all. Robert slid open a slit hatch in the bedroom window. Robert saw him. The alpha male stood screaming by a burning car and several more infected started to came rapidly to the perpetually enraged leader.**

"**Him…" was all Robert could say.**

"**What?" Anna asked. **

"**He…he must be the leader of this group," Robert explained. "He came at me the other day…in day light when I was snaring the one I trapped down stairs. Almost burned himself to death in the sun. He's crazy."**

**The alpha male screamed at Robert and all the rest of the infected broke out into a sprint towards the house.**

"**Get down to the lab," Robert commanded Anna and Ethan. "Get downstairs! Go!"**

**They ran down the stairs as the infected got to the building and started climbing…straight up the walls. **

**The trio made it down to the three flights of stairs to the basement and Robert pointed them towards the screened of section at the end of the lab. **

"**Get behind the plexi!" he ordered. **

"**Oh my God. Come on Ethan." Anna unfastened the plexi-glass screen and grabbed Ethan while Robert secured the bolts on the lab doors. On the top floor the darkseekers were crashing through the ceiling and running down the stairs. The final blood hunt was on.**

"**Oh my God," Anna repeated once again, but not so much in horror as in amazement. She was looking at the infected female. Robert hobbled over to the sectioned-off isolation area and saw what Anna was looking at. He stared at the female hemocyte on the examination table. **

**The dark seeking woman's body was now a soft and even flesh color. Her breathing was slow and unlabored. Her skin was no longer clinging tightly to the sinews of her muscles. All-in-all, with the exception of her lack of hair, the infected woman seemed virtually completely transformed.**

"**It worked!" Anna exclaimed.**

**Robert looked intensely at the vitals monitors. Breathing 20. Heart rate 60. Bp 114/77. Pulse/Ox 100%. Very normal. Very incredible.**

"**Oh my God, Neville!" Anna crossed herself quickly. She was coming to tears. She lept into his arms "You did it!"**

**Just then the force of more than a dozen dark seekers forced the lab doors open with a crash. Robert quickly**** latched**** and ****sealed ****the plexi-glass doors. At the lead of the pack was the roaring alpha male with literal blood in his eyes…and no amount of clear polymer plastic, no matter how thick, was going to keep him from his prey.**


	12. Bloody Butterfly

The alpha male was now beyond hysterics. He howled with such force that the even the other darkseekers flinched. They soon recovered and began trashing Robert's lab.

"No…no…no!" Robert protested.

The leader himself took a running start and slammed into the plexi-glass with such force that the resultant WHOOMP startled everyone. The other infected followed suit.

"Stop!" Robert raised both hands up in a halting gesture. "I can save you now! You are sick and I can help! I can save everybody! I can fix this now!"

The alpha male gave another of his beastly screams and head-butted the screen, finally making the beginnings of a crack in it. Robert aimed Anna's gun at him, but the hemocyte leader did not even flinch. It was a Mexican stand-off anyway as Robert didn't dare fire the weapon and damage the plexi-glass even more.

"Let me save you, dammit, please! All of you! Please don't!" Robert implored. He waved the gun at the others. "…All of you! Stop! I can fix everyone! EVERYONE!"

But the alpha male's only reply was a grotesquely gaped-mouth howl. He resumed battering his head against the transparent wall. Robert recoiled from the impacts as the spreading cracks presaged the impending collapse of the barrier.

"Please, God, stop!" Robert was in the netherwold beyond fear for his own life. He was in a virtual state of shock and he did not know what he was going to do. He looked back at Anna who was crouched against the farthest wall clutching Ethan.

"Neville…" Anna reached a hand out to him, beckoning him to come to her. But Robert stood his ground as the last obstacle between the dark seekers and Anna and Ethan. Abruptly the pounding and cracking of the plexi-glass paused. Robert turned his head back to the melee in the laboratory proper. The alpha male, while relatively still, was still a tableau of nervous furious and frenetic activity. While the hulking figure panted maniacally, his distorted, crazed eyes diverted to Robert, to Anna, to his crazed companions, to the whole laboratory, and back again. He was looking. Looking…

There was a banshee-scream of frustration and then the hemocyte slammed a bloody hand against the plexi-glass. Robert recoiled and levelled the Glock again ready to shoot.

"No!" Anna wailed.

The beast's hand against the glass had rotated and left a large sweeping blood smear. The hand was withdrawn and the opposite hand slammed against the glass near the first mark of pale blood. That hand now tried to make a similar motion in the opposite direction as the first leaving two big, almost symmetrical smears on the plexi-glass.

"What the hell…?" Robert's eyes practically glazed over. He was squinting at the primitive design.

Robert looked back to Anna enshrouding Ethan in the corner. The stylized butterfly tattoo on the side of the young woman's neck stood-out in brilliant relief. If that was what the alpha male was getting at… Visceral fear and fury swelled in Robert's chest.

"Oh hells no!" Robert leveled the pistol at the alpha male once again with both hands.

The hemocyte leader roared and stepped back. He raised both fists in the air. He was going to smash through

"No!" both Anna and Ethan this time.

Robert closed in on the glass and placed the muzzle of the gun against it. His hand reached for the latch. He looked back one last time at the distressed Anna. He was about to tell her not to worry, when he looked over and noticed the infected woman. She was now recovering proof that things COULD actually be alright. She was looking very harmless, and very human, and sort of vulnerable lying there…and like Anna, on her side was the same butterfly tattoo.

"Ohhhhh no…"

The same design that had been popping up everywhere as the epidemic first spread almost exactly three years ago. The multicolored stylized butterfly of the "God Still Loves Us…Do We Still Love Him?" campaign. People were putting that butterfly on everything. On homes, on cars, on clothing….and on themselves. In the same way superstitious people wore religious icons to ward off evil. Like crosses to ward off vampires. The butterfly had been a symbol that all people could get behind…and everybody, back in those days would have done whatever it took to not be overlooked, by God.

And now here it was again. Thoughts of his daughter's last words briefly recalled in his memory: "Daddy, look! It's a butterfly."

_Yep…there it is, baby, _Robert thought. _Daddy sees it._

He slowly and deliberately placed the gun on the floor, and then began to go to work on the infected female strapped to the examination table.

At first Anna observed wide eyed and bewildered from the floor but then got up to look closer.

"What are you doing?" she asked as Robert withdrew the IV catheter that was slowly pushing the curative vaccine solution into her veins.

Almost immediately the Krippin Virus regained it's edge in the fight for the woman's body. Her veins began to bulge out disturbingly as her blood pressure rose precipitously. Her skin gradually went from pale to translucent along her arm and then her whole body. She began breathing again in short rapid breaths and her pulse rate, even though she was still unconscious, shot up to 122 beats per minute.

Robert slowly maneuvered so that his back was to the plexi-glass screen. He looked over to the mortified Anna and softly asked of her:

"Open the door please?"

"What are you doing?" she asked again, her voice slightly hoarse from yelling.

"I'm listening," Robert said simply.

When Anna had gathered her strength, she picked up her gun from the floor, gathered Ethan so that he was safe behind her, took a deep breath and unlatched the door. With one had she pulled and with the other hand she kept the pistol pointed at the darkseekers on the other side.

Robert backed the rolling examination table though the opening as soon as it was wide enough. With his back to the whole crowd he was startled when he bumped into the alpha male.

The distended jaws gaped open and snarled a jagged-tooth growl. It was all Robert could do to maintain his composure. He motioned for Anna to close the door right away, and she reluctantly complied.

The alpha male snarled some more, but then turned his attention to the female. He looked at her unconscious form and tilted his head.

"I need to get a syringe." Robert pointed to the side wall cabinets. Without waiting to see if he had been understood he slowly walked over to the lab counters.

Five dark-seekers immediately surrounded Robert just as he was reaching to open a drawer. Their gaped-mouth hissing bespoke an imminent dismemberment for Robert, but a sharp bass bark from their leader subdued the vicious quintet. Robert opened the drawer and withdrew a hypo-dermic needle.

With slow movements Robert walked back to the hemocyte woman and injected the solution into her leg. Robert withdrew the syringe but before he could even discard it the infected woman's accelerated circulatory system had distributed the systemic purge. She arched her back and hissed in a deep breath.

She opened her eyes and saw the alpha male looking down at her. She gave a erie gasp and reached out. She tenderly touched the male hemocyte's face. He brought his face down to her's and they rubbed foreheads together. Robert stood there in amazement.

The alpha male gave a gape-mouthed screech that probably approximated joy. He then slowly and gently lifted his mate up in his arms while keeping an angry wary eye on Robert.

"I…I'm sorry," Robert said softly. The alpha male roared his disapproval. Robert looked away in anticipation of possible reprisal. The board with pictures of the killed infected stood in the background of the alpha male's vision. Yet, instead of attacking or causing an attack with his guttural commands…the hemocyte leader just stared at Robert as if seeing him differently…not as predator OR prey. Just something different.

After what seemed a long while the alpha male gave a sharp and throaty bark, and then began to usher the rest of the darkseekers out.

Just as Robert looked up the alpha-male, while still cradle-carrying his female, disappearing through the doorway.

Robert slumped against the plexiglass wall and let himself slide down it's face to the floor. He was completely spent. He managed to twist his neck around to look through the transparent door and there was Anna smiling at him, also sitting on the floor in exhaustion.

Robert unstrained his neck muscles and began to face forward again. Anna comforted Ethan with shushes and words to the effect that everything was going to be alright.

Robert turned his eyes to pictures of the infected dead, that he had killed, on the wall.


	13. I am Legend

It is September 10, 2012. My name is Robert Neville. This transmission is originating from New York City. If you come here looking for me, you will not find me for I have moved on. But do not be discouraged. You are not alone.

The virus that has devastated our world has a cure. But, you don't need it. If you are alive then you are already immune.

Today I, along with two other survivors, are leaving New York and going to Bethel, Vermont where we hope to reach the safe zone established there and encounter other survivors.

The infected are out there and they are not dying out. They are getting stronger. But, be not afraid.

The infected have been altered by the Krippin Virus. They are allergic to ultra-violet radiation and can not survive in any strong light. Never the less, they are exceptionally adapted to night, having advanced visual acuity in darkness, amplified olfactory senses, augmented physical dexterity, and invulnerability to most animal diseases including cancer. Still, this does not make them unassailable, yet…

…for they are still changing.

Just as the Krippin Virus mutated, so have the humans that KV has infected...and the mutating continues. They are smarter than you think. Do not let this scare you.

They have increasing cognitive thought processes, they have emotional drives, they have social interaction, and they have developed language…they understand one another. Do not underestimate them, but do not be driven to exterminate them. Not now…

If you know my name you know that I was entrusted with containing the spread of the virus and synthesizing the cure. I failed three years ago at the former objective, but of late, I have come up with the solution to the latter. And although this cure is not needed by any immune human hearing my voice it still is important to all of us…

The day light still belongs to us humans and night still belongs to those that seek the darkness.

In time, if I have time, I will collate the cure into a resilient concentrated antibody culture. I will transfer that immunitive serum to several hosts amongst the dark seekers . And, there, within each new carrier's tribe the anti-virus virus will spread by physical dissemination and group dissemination. Just like any other disease pathology. That is my plan. The dark-seekers will spread the cure amongst themselves. That is my plan. Until then…

I know that if you have survived this long you have killed many of them. If you have not already discovered: they are thinking, they are feeling, they are loving, and they are living. They have changed far from what we are. They are definitely not the same any more. But just as the initially infected degraded into non-comprehending animals, the dark-seekers of three years later are still different from that. They are their own civilization now.

If you are alive and hearing my voice: Stay alive. Hold on! Avoid the darkseekers. Try to make them understand you. Try to show them that you mean them no harm. I have made the mistake. I did not realize that it was possible for them to fear as much as be fearsome. They are vulnerable. They fear the light. They are vulnerable. They fear the creatures of the day light. Yourself, me…all uninfected humans who are still alive and struggling to survive in the day light hours available to them.

Survivors. Don't kill out of fear any more. I have killed more than FIFTY- thousand or more in three years of shooting, poisonings, bombing, captures, experimentation and just the general struggle to survive amongst them. I have not spared them once in all that time. More than FIFTY-thousand. Yet, If I had known they were….evolving…I would have tried something I never thought of; communicating.

It is too late to bring back their dead. To be honest…there is no guarantee that what peace I have gained with them last night will last until tomorrow night or the next. I regret my ignorance, but…

Anthropologists say that three million years ago the ape-like ancestor to humans, homo erectus, roamed the earth at the same time as other ape-men, the largely vegetarian homo-australopithecus. The two erectly walking primates stood in direct competition with each other for resources, food, and territory. Our ancestors won out in the end, and the australopithicenes disappeared from the world about a million years later. However, the fossilized records give us no details of what exactly happened.

Did the two species, both derived from early apes, see each other as completely separate? Did they interbreed? Did they go to war against each other? Did the australopiths just die out?...starve?

After a while did the remaining proto-homosapiens even wonder what happened to the creatures that used to live amongst them…or were they just glad that they were gone.

In that early pre-human culture were there horror stories of man-like beasts that were once an enemy to prehistoric man. Were there tales and myths back then, just as we, in our civilization, talked of big-foots, and yeti-beasts….were-wolves, boogie-men, vampires?

Though massively reduced, humanity has survived the Krippin Virus. There is myself, Anna Montez, a young boy named Ethan, and hopefully many others who remain, and always will remain, immune. The children of the Krippin Virus, the darkseekers, outnumber us vastly. They are stronger, more robust, disease-proof, and can thrive in the blackest of night. Still, for now, we have the slight advantage of daylight, and, against these dark seekers still-in-transition, mental strength.

We can eliminate them, all of them, in the daytime…if we so choose. I know I have done so, or tried to do so over the last three years. Kill them or change them. I did so without regret. It seemed…natural. They no longer seemed human, so there was no need to be humane.

Now, I wish them no harm. I still want to cure them all, If possible. If not possible I want peace. Peace so that the rest of us immune humans can be safe in the nights to come...to live and survive. To repopulate and prosper.

I am not sure if that is possible either. We are at odds. Last night...several darkseekers let me live through another night. I don't know if they will be willing to spare me again. I am a threat. They know what I have done…they know what I am capable of doing. They have seen me kill them on a massive scale. They have seen me change one their own kind into something not like themselves…and then I brought her back again. What must they think of me? Can I be trusted? Can they live with me? Or...amongst themselves, in the dark shadows where they hive-up in the day, are they discussing me. Deciding whether or not they are safer if I, and all humans that once destroyed them, are dead.

I am leaving New York now and I do not know when or if I can return. Will I return to cure them or will I come with others to take back the city…and maybe have to fight them? Maybe no human will ever be seen by a dark-seeker again.

What am I to them then? A mystery? A bad dream? A nightmare...now gone? What to tell subsequent generations about the boogie man that lit up their peaceful nights with painful bright light and explosions? What to tell about the beast that did so many horrors to them without remorse...even as they peacefully rested in the day? What kind of monster would that be? Will I ever be real to them any more?

Or am I legend?


End file.
